MOSCOW, June 8. /TASS/. All the charges of "igniting" a Cold War mentality, addressed to the Russian leadership, do not hold water, because historically the Cold War is a brainchild of the West, and it is the United States, and not Russia, that keeps waging it, polled analysts have told TASS.
At the June 7-8 G7 summit in Elmau Castle, to which Russia has not been invited for the first time over the past 18 years, White House spokesman Josh Earnest accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of attempts to "re-ignite a Cold War mentality."
He also emphatically denied the United States and EU were in any way responsible for the current tensions in relations with Moscow.
"That certainly is not the perspective of the United States or other members of the G7," Earnest said, when asked whether the position of the G7 was to "reject Russia" and to return to "the Cold War roots". US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel held a meeting at Elmau to discuss the question of sanctions against Russia. In an official statement the White House said the duration of sanctions should be clearly linked to Russia's full implementation of the Minsk agreements.
"The Cold War began with former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s notorious speech in Fulton in March 1946, when he urged the West to screen itself from the USSR with an Iron Curtain. By agreeing to prolong the anti-Russian sanctions the G7 leaders demonstrated their intention to isolate Russia with an economic equivalent of the Iron Curtain as a weapon of another Cold War," the senior research fellow at the Institute of US and Canada Studies under the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vasily Krivokhizha, told TASS.
"The United States began with economic and financial sanctions and a media war against Russia. Now it is about to start acting from the position of strength. Just take a closer look at what Pentagon officials have been saying about the United States’ right to carry out pre-emptive strikes against Russian facilities that ostensibly violate the intermediate nuclear force (INF) treaty and the intention to deploy in Europe ground-based missiles targeted against Russia. There have been hints at the possibility of nuclear strikes against military targets inside Russia. This is tantamount to the abrogation of the principle of nuclear deterrence, to say the least. These statements are far worse than threats of a resumption of the Cold War. They are a clear sign the Pentagon lacks an adequate perception of the world situation," Krivokhizha believes.
"Judging by reports from the G7 summit Obama sets the tune of anti-Russian rhetoric and puts pressures on his allies with the aim to persuade them the isolation of Russia must continue. When Russia responds to these challenges and Russian society demonstrates consolidation, the EU countries, by virtue of their dependence on the United States, prefer to follow in Obama’s footsteps, although the prolongation of sanctions backfires on the EU economies,’ Krivokhizha said.
"The United States’ outspoken anti-Russian escapades mean that Washington is aware the days of its world dictating are numbered. Twenty five years after the breakup of the Soviet Union Russia is firmly on its feet. With reliance on support from the BRICS and the SCO Russia has been conducting an independent foreign policy. China, aware of the artificial nature of the modern financial system, is gradually curtailing the use of the dollar. At a certain point France’s former president Nicolas Sarkozy pointed to the need for a fundamental revision of the world financial system. This is the most vulnerable spot for the United States. Therefore, Washington is prepared to go to great lengths to overpower Moscow as a potential rival and to consolidate its allies," Krivokhizha said.
And the director of the Political Studies Institute, Sergey Markov, believes that the United States has unleashed a hybrid war against Russia, which is even worse than the Cold War was in its day.
"The intensity of aggressive rhetoric by the United States against Russia by far exceeds the one that was observed in the Cold War years. Alongside information attacks Washington is pushing ahead with a tough regime of sanctions, applies pressure on its allies for the sake of isolating Russia and utters threats it may deploy in Europe its missiles capable of delivering a pre-emptive strike. In that context the United States accuses Moscow of attempts to ignite Cold War mentality in order to camouflage its own aggressive actions," says Markov, a member of Russia’s Civic Chamber.
"The United States’ aim is to subjugate Russia, to stage a government coup identical to the one in Ukraine. For Washington Ukraine is just a means of gaining the upper hand over Russia. The United States’ and the European Union’s habitual demands for compliance with the Minsk Accords on the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis are just a smoke screen for taking tighter sanctions. The West should address demands for compliance with the Minsk Accords first and foremost towards the puppet regime in Kiev, because Moscow is not a party to the intra-Ukrainian conflict," Markov said.
TASS may not share the opinions of its contributors